Lose (the) Control

The United States’ speed skating team broke the cardinal rule of competition:

Don’t try something new on race day.

The finger-pointing that arose following disappointing race after disappointing race seemed to single out Under Armour, who had collaborated with Lockheed Martin to develop the hi-tech suits the Americans were wearing. The culprit: ventilating holes on the back of the suits, designed to let heat escape, were allegedly creating drag – enough to be responsible for the slow times the skaters were posting. Apparently the athletes only received these suits in January, and had not worn them in competition prior to the Olympics.

We’ve all been there after a bad race. We’ll start up the excuse engine and crank out whatever we need to hear to make ourselves feel better. The Monday-morning-quarterbacking can sometimes prove essential to unlocking better performances later. We’re able to learn what worked, and what didn’t, and tweak our training programs for the next time around. This is suitable for most of us, who aren’t racing for our profession, or in the Olympics, but for these athletes, this may have been their first, or last, shot at glory.

When word got out that the suits were to blame, one of the first quotes I read was from the Dutch coaches. The Dutch always excel at long track speed skating, but so far in Sochi have been nearly untouchable. One coach said that they’d tried a similar ventilation system on their suits years ago, and saw that it was creating more drag. He, and many other coaches around the oval, kept muttering about it being the suits that were the problem – which got into Team USA’s heads.

If I were an opponent, regardless of whether it’s fact or not, I would absolutely do the same thing. You need to use anything you can (legally) to gain an advantage over your competition, and giving someone a reason to doubt themselves when they’re vulnerable is the perfect means.

I read this article today in the Washington Post (courtesy of Alyssa), and noted journalist and author, Sally Jenkins, hits the nail on the head: “High-tech fabric, the heat and atmospheric conditions — none of it mattered as much as what was between their ears.” Team USA had just psyched themselves out.

The article continued with a few quotes from Olympic gold medal winner, Dan Jansen, who placed some doubt on the entire Team USA system. “There’s gold in them thar hills” would echo how most athletes and NOCs feel about living and training at altitude, but it would seem that many are hung up on quantitative data and not qualitative data. Here’s where I would insert a clip from Rocky IV, when Ivan Drago had access to all the best technology and equipment and did everything in a controlled environment. That contrasted with Rocky’s grittier training techniques – low-tech training, suffering, isolation, outdoors – and we all know how that fight ended.

Sometimes, you just gotta feel it.

I bring this up because I see a lot of folks’ workouts, and I see how much they try to control them. By no means am I singling any individual out, because it goes for a lot of us (myself included). Using myself as an example, my weekly schedule has remained pretty similar for the past decade. I run the same runs, ride the same rides, swim the same workouts. Depending on the time of year, and my goals, there are certain things that will change, but it’s pretty easy to find me if you know what day of the week it is.

I wear a watch (if I can find it) and go on time and effort. I never have any idea of my pace, and have general ideas of how far I’ve run. I haven’t had a computer on my bike in at least 5 years. Because, while numbers allow us to gauge how hard we’re working or how long it will take us to do something, they don’t tell us how much we’re willing to suffer. We’ve come to rely on doing workouts in controlled environments – NCR, the track, Boston Street. Doing the same track workout-tempo run-long run combo week in and week out. We analyze the numbers instead of assess how we feel. When we don’t race as well as we expected, we try to sift through all of the data to understand what went wrong, instead of being honest and saying “I just didn’t have it.”

After a collective assortment of disappointing results any organization ought to perform its due diligence and inspect everything. But the devil is in the details, and you can drive yourself crazy overthinking things. It takes courage to be honest and say you just didn’t have it, and then pick yourself up and start again.

As Dan Jansen says in the Post article, all the training at altitude didn’t do much to prepare the athletes for racing at sea level in Sochi, where warmer temperatures have created different ice conditions. While they were focused on controlling conditions and going fast in training, they forgot that training is not racing.

You’ll often hear runners say “Oh, I’m just using this race for training” (guilty!). It allows us to assign a level of effort we’re willing to put out, and we can use it as a crutch when someone beats us. I say we all stand to benefit from going out and racing sometime – going harder than we go in training, getting pushed, blowing up. Because without it, we’ll never know how much we can withstand. You’ll pass out before you die. We need to get out of our comfort zones. We train at a pace we think we can hold, but we don’t train for the first quarter mile of a 5k where we’re 5 seconds faster than our training and can feel the lactic acid building by the mile mark. We do mile after mile at 6:00 pace, expecting to be able to walk through a 2:40 marathon, but we forget there are hills, or that we’re going to inevitably go out in 5:40 and have to absorb that quick first mile.

For most of us, we’re running for reasons other than winning. We want to run the races that will give us the best opportunity to run fast times. There’s no shame in that game. But no matter who you are, don’t forget to feel it. Race the race. When you cross the line, if the time isn’t what you expected, choose to focus instead on the effort. On that day, did you give your best effort? If yes, brush off the bad day, regroup, and move onto the next one. You can’t be 100% a hundred percent of the time.

Failure to plan is planning to fail.

Team USA accounted for everything in their training. They trained on a fast track and had sponsors create the (supposedly) fastest suit. What they had failed to plan for was the conditions. There’s a reason for training on the courses you’ll race, so you know what to expect on race day. Andre 3000 said, “you can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.” We might not be able to always predict the weather, but we sure as hell can plan for it.

2012: Back to RACING

NOTE: This is an open letter to all of our compatriots in racing.  I hope the members of Howard County Striders, Georgetown Running Company, and anyone else who might read this blog, including, but not limited to Annapolis Striders, Baltimore Road Runners Club, RASAC, Westminster RRC, Montgomery County RRC, Potomac River Running, etc, read this message.

The response that we received from the recent post about the rising cost of race entry fees was emphatic.  It seems that we aren't the only ones who are tired of paying for sub par events.  All we need is a start/finish line, a distance, and a competitive field.  Ed had started the discussion with members of GRC when he met them for a run recently, and also with Carlos, and after a few more emails got circulated, I was overwhelmed by the feedback.

The proposal is this:

1) Create a race series for the year, similar to a Grand Prix or the IAAF's Diamond League Meets.

2) Use pre-existing events that we know people will race already, and supplement by adding our own events, including track meets, cross country meets, and other road races.

3) Scoring tables could be figured out to rank individual leaders, but primarily this would be team-oriented.  It would effectively add team competitions to races that don't already have them.

Most of all, the goal would be to enhance the quality of racing.  Actually make races about the RACE.  There are plenty of very fast events each year that are always going to be competitive, but outside of those, some of the races are either too low-key, or are huge clusters (like most "participation" races).  If you want to be the best, you have to race against the best.  Our ideas have included hosting track meets, rotating who hosts, as well as which events are held; cross country races; road events. 

And really all it takes is coordinating efforts by establishing a schedule of races that would be part of a series.  Races like Shamrock 5k, Cherry Blossom, Pike's Peek, of course would be on there, but then we'd look at including other races that can be agreed upon.  We can make a calendar, and figure out which people will be there.  We can establish a team captain for a given event, and as long as each team submits a roster prior to the event, then we can ensure fair scoring practices!

We also want to incorporate more social elements into the events as well.  Sure, we're all rivals, but it's always fun to socialize and get to meet the people that push you to a great result.  We need to bring racing back, and make it fun. 

As always, comments and thoughts are welcomed and appreciated!  And if you have other input, or would like to help and be a part of it, feel free to email me directly (rmcgrath732@gmail.com). 

Chicago 2011

Many of us checked the Chicago Marathon off our lists last year but for those who were thinking about 2011, I just got an email saying that there are < 5000 spots remaining and the race is "expected to close before the end of the week."

Pretty nuts that recently almost EVERY race is filling up early.

Shamrock 5k EARLY REGISTRATION

Race Date: March 13, 2011

Fees: $30 Postmarked by December 31, 2010.

Active.com always whores us a charge I refuse to pay if I don't have to.

SO, I filled out the PRINTABLE form, hit print, wrote a check, and put a $0.44 cent stamp on it.

Enter the team name Falls Road

If you decide to run, I'd choose paying $30.44 with 2-minutes extra effort...

Or help the economy (and Active.com)
Entry Fees:
$30 through December 31
$35 January 1-15
$40 January 16-31
$45 after January 31

Jarf

Favorite Speed Workouts -- Advice??

So I have been slowly getting back into competitive running after taking a very long break that coincided with my daughter being born and a crazy year-long renovation of a Fed Hill rowhouse. Anyway, my mileage is starting to increase -- about 30-40 right now and I'd like that to be 45-55 in the next month or so -- but I'm struggling a bit to assemble some speed workouts. It's been a while since I have "trained" for anything, but I'm feeling great in my runs lately and I really hope to drop some PR's in the next 6-12 months or so.
So here's my upcoming race calendar. There's a big run in Hawaii called the Great Aloha Run. It is 8.15 miles and is February 15th. This is my "goal" race, if you want to call it that. There is also a Readiness Series leading up to the Aloha run consisting of a 5k (12/7), an 8k (1/10) and a 10k (1/31) that I'd like to use as part of my training.
So here's my question for the group -- what are some of the best speed workouts you have done in the past year? What have you found the most effecive? What has worked at TNT? What hasn't worked out so well?
I have a smal group of strong runners here that I run with twice a week - Wednesday night group runs of 6-9 miles and Sunday long runs of 12-18 miles so far. But my speed work may be done by myself, unless I can convince any of them to join. There are also plenty of hills around here if you have any good hill workouts to recommend. Sidenote - I went for an "easy" hour run yesterday and stumbled on a ridiculous hill half way through the loop I wanted to do. I wish I knew the elevation on it, but it was a good 1/2 mile of climbing. Ugh.
Anyway, I appreciate any help you can offer. I also hope this helps others in the group by compiling a list of quality workouts we may want to use over again in our training cycles.
Thanks!!